http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1401/27/ijvm.01.htmlJANE VELEZ-MITCHELL
Masked Predator Attacking Texas Women?; Wife Accused of Helping Kill Husband`s Ex
Aired January 27, 2014 - 19:00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL, HOST: Tonight, a bone-chilling mystery. A beautiful young woman vanishes into thin air in a small Texas town while taking a walk near her in-laws` house, just hours before a terrifying attack on a young woman jogging in the same general area. Is a man in a ski mask preying on beautiful young women in Texas?
Good evening, I`m Jane Velez-Mitchell coming to you live.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She went for a walk while visiting his parents in Texas and never returned.
JOSH BEARDEN, LEANNE`S HUSBAND: You know, the daytimes I`m strong- ish. The night times are awful.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sometimes not knowing is worse than knowing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Cops say 33-year-old Leanne Bearden left her in-laws` house in Garden Ridge, Texas, which is near San Antonio, in jeans and a T- shirt to go for a walk. She didn`t have her cell phone with her. It was just a casual little stroll. But after a few hours, her husband realized something was terribly wrong.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
J. BEARDEN: I knew after three hours that something was really, really wrong.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Search parties have now scoured the entire area, looking, hunting for any trace of Leanne, but so far they have not found any clues. Zero. It is a total mystery.
But just hours after Leanne disappeared, a female jogger was attacked 30 miles away by a masked man who happened to have a spider tattoo. The jogger successfully fought off the masked attacker. The suspect has not been identified or located. Are these two cases connected? We`re asking tonight.
Call me, 1-877-JVM-SAYS, 1-877-586-7297. Together, we`re going to try to solve this case.
Joining me now in a primetime exclusive, Leanne`s husband, Josh Bearden. Josh, first of all, I want to say that my heart goes out to you. I`m so sorry over what you`re going through. I understand that this is a complete nightmare. But I probably don`t even have an inkling of what you`re feeling emotionally.
I want to say, cops have cleared you of any involvement. That is a published report.
Let`s -- let`s start with what you`re going through. What has this been like since the 17th?
J. BEARDEN: It`s been just the worst experience that you could possibly imagine, to go from traveling around the world for two years with your best friend, and seeing her every single day, and then all of a sudden she`s just gone, and nobody has any idea where she is. It`s the worst feeling that anybody could ever have.
And I want to thank you for helping us today, and being interested in our story.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: We are very interested. And we want to see if somehow we can either jog somebody`s memory who is watching.
Now, here`s the thing that I want to clarify. What time exactly did she go out, and why would she go out without a cell phone? And yet I understand she had her wallet with her.
J. BEARDEN: You know, we always go out for a walk with a cell phone. So normally, you know, she wouldn`t have her cell phone with her. Plus we only had one cell phone. Because we`d been sharing a cell phone, until we moved back to Denver. So her not having a cell phone isn`t that unusual, because I was doing job interviews.
And as far as the wallet goes, we always hike with our wallet or go walk around with our wallet. I really don`t understand why that`s unusual. But I guess it is. We always go for a walk with our wallets.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right. Well, let me ask you to stand by. We`re going to mention some clues that we have so far. And they`re few and far between. And then we`re going to get your reaction and the experts that we have on our panel to try to solve this. Or at least get a break of some sort.
Leanne`s husband, you just heard him. He`s speaking to us exclusively tonight. Says she only took her wallet when she left the house, not her cell phone.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
J. BEARDEN: She had, at most, $60 cash. And she had her -- she had her wallet. So she had her credit cards in there, which I have checked.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Now, according to cops, there`s been no credit card activity on any of her cards. They did confirm that Leanne, in fact, left the house. Police say landscapers talked to them and said yes, they saw Leanne walking north from her in-laws` home.
Now, she`s extremely petite. She weighs just 100 pounds and is 5`2". So she`s in great shape. She could be easily overpowered.
Jon Leiberman, here`s what I don`t get. How is it possible that police are saying they`re calling off the search tonight because they don`t have any evidence that a crime`s been committed. Are you kidding me? This is a petite young woman who, what do you think, she walks out into the sunset with no possessions and no cell phone, just for no reason and that`s not suspicious?
JON LEIBERMAN, HLN CONTRIBUTOR: Look, this is a young woman who also ran marathons. That`s what kind of shape she was in. When she left the house, we`ve learned, she had on hiking boots.
So right now, Jane, there are two parallel investigations. One investigation into the scenario that, did she try and go hiking, and perhaps fell, or got bitten by some sort of animal? And I will say she was not familiar with the terrain around this area, because this was her in- laws` home. That`s one possibility.
And in fact, Texas EquuSearch has offered drones to go up and actually survey all the land around there, because there are these little caves and little cavities where she could have fallen. And that`s one investigation.
The other parallel investigation, as you mentioned, even though the searchers have been called off actively, they are following up leads. They`re looking at 41 sex offenders in that area, in this county. They`re looking at the unsolved case that you mentioned of the hiker. So there are two parallel investigations. Don`t read too much into the fact that they`re not actively searching. They`re putting those resources elsewhere.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, let`s take a look at this possible -- we don`t know -- but there`s possibly -- we can look at it, a connection between Leanne`s disappearance and this other terrifying case. Cops say another jogger was attacked near where Leanne vanished. You can see on the map -- and we`re going to show you -- the location is only 30 miles apart.
Now, according to the woman who was attacked, her attacker was wearing a ski mask and had a spider tattoo on his neck. Now Leanne disappeared on the afternoon, is my understanding, of Friday, January 17. So two Fridays ago. The female jogger was attacked by the man in the ski mask 10 p.m. that same night, 30 miles away. That woman was able to fight him off.
But Joe Gomez, reporter, KRLD in Dallas, what do you make? Is that just a bizarre and terrifying coincidence, or could there be somebody who is on the loose there preying on women?
JOE GOMEZ, REPORTER, KRLD, DALLAS: Yes, we`ve always heard there`s no such thing as coincidences, right, Jane? This was a brazen attack by this individual to assault this woman in the middle of the night, while she`s jogging out there. I mean, a lot of joggers go out there. It`s decent weather out there in San Antonio this time of year. And that he would just attack this woman, with the possibility of getting caught, is very brazen.
Now, what`s also frightening, Jane, is that earlier this month, another woman was stabbed to death at a park in the San Antonio area, as well. She was discovered stabbed to death. Her attacker has never been found. So it`s...
VELEZ-MITCHELL: My understanding was -- my understanding was that there was an arrest in that case. And we`re going to have to try to clarify that. We`re going to clarify that during the break. Because there`s a lot of information coming out.
There was an attack on New Year`s Eve where a young woman was attacked and my understanding is killed, tragically. But my understanding is that that attacker has been caught, or at least the suspect in this case has been caught.
But if not, you`re possibly right. There could be three women now at risk of one dead, one missing, one who fought off her attacker. You know, this is a war on women that we`re talking about here. Women in America should not have to feel terrified of going for a hike or going for a jog. And it`s a sad state of affairs when that is the reality. That when women are jogging in an area, there`s warnings: oh, be careful, be careful.
We have a great surveillance technology. Often used for all the wrong reasons. We should have surveillance technology to protect women in America, so that we, more than half the population -- taxpayers, mothers, daughters, wives, sisters -- can go out without fearing for our lives.
Garth in New York, Garth, New York, what do you have to say?
CALLER: I have one thing to say, Jane. Because I don`t have a problem with the law enforcement camera system. Because there`s so many people been disappearing, and when they`re ready to use the cameras for the right reasons, they`ll find it. What happened to the camera when our children and our sisters and our brothers are disappearing and they don`t find them. What`s going on with the camera system? And what is...
VELEZ-MITCHELL: You`re absolutely right. There are -- there is incredible surveillance technology, extremely cheap right now, that we could put on every street in America. You know, they could catch you when you cross a red light. I`ve been caught driving and gone through that red light, boom, that camera has me. So it`s not a question of privacy, because they`ve got the cameras out there. But they should have cameras out there to save lives.
If you`re in a national park, or a local park, put cameras out there, so that people can see who`s going in and out, and we can catch predators.
We`re just getting started. We`ve got new information coming in. We`re clarifying the issue of whether or not a suspect has been caught in the New Year`s Eve case.
And again, we`re on exclusively with Josh Bearden, who is searching for his wife. They went around the world for two years. Then she gets back to Texas and goes missing while taking a walk. What do you think? Stay right there.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have to be doing something. We just -- the waiting is the worst part of this. The waiting and not knowing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LEANNE BEARDEN, MISSING WOMAN: How about little kisses?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: That is the woman who is missing tonight. We`re trying to find her. With her husband in Athens, Greece.
Leanne and her husband just got back from fulfilling a lifelong dream traveling the world. They visited 56 countries in 22 months. And then, in a tragic irony, back visiting the in-laws, Josh`s parents, this beautiful young woman, petite, goes out for a walk on the 17th, Friday the 17th, two Fridays ago, never returns.
And we found out there was an arrest in the New Year`s Eve case. So we`re talking about her disappearance on the same day as a woman is attacked by a man in a ski mask.
Josh, I want to go back to you. I ask this not to embarrass you. But have you been able to look at her cell phone and see, did she have communications with anyone? Is it possible that she met somebody during her travels, and wanted to hook up with that person? Was she upset about anything? Were there money troubles? You know, anything?
J. BEARDEN: No, there`s nothing that I can figure out. And as far as if she hooked up with somebody, or something like that, we were together 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 22 months. I`m pretty sure that I would have known if anything like that was going on. So I don`t mean to chuckle at it, but it`s just -- it`s not possible.
Can you ask the other part of the question? I forgot, sorry.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, I said, did you have a chance to look at her cell phone and see if there were any communications? I mean, it may not be something that is -- there might be something that she texted like, "Hey, I`ll stop by the bank," or "I`ll meet you at the coffee shop," or whatever, to a friend that would give an indication of where she was going.
J. BEARDEN: Yes, we turned over my cell phone, or our cell phone over to the police. And they had it for about a day. And then we hired a private investigator today, and he went over the phone records with us. So we`ve gone over every single phone number that`s been called and received. And have checked all of those. So there was nothing unusual that`s on there.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Nothing they can use at all.
Well, let me go to Evangeline Gomez, criminal defense attorney. You`ve handled so many of these cases. What do you make of this?
EVANGELINE GOMEZ, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: This is a very sad, tragic case. This is a Katherine Middleton look-alike.
In this situation, I think you`d want to hire various private investigators and actually investigate the theories they come up with. You don`t want to put all your eggs in one basket. You want to make sure that every stone has been unturned, that nothing has been left out of this search.
Also, competing search teams would be something that I would advise hiring, that could work with and independently of the local police department.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, he did hire a private investigator.
E. GOMEZ: One.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes. One. Well, OK, it`s a start. Dr. Tiffanie Davis-Henry, this is a surreal nightmare for this family.
TIFFANIE DAVIS HENRY: It is.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: What are your thoughts?
HENRY: Well, it`s really tragic. It`s kind of unthinkable that -- you know, I`m someone who goes out when I go running, and oftentimes, I go running by myself in national parks. You don`t think that something like this could happen. But this is certainly a wakeup call, Jane, that this can -- this is a very real possibility.
I don`t think this woman just seemingly vanished in thin air. I think that there is someone out there that knows something about this case. And I would ask, plead with Josh -- and I know he`s doing it -- to keep praying, keep being strong. You and your family, you have the love and support of an entire nation that wants to see Leanne found. So keep making noise. Keep doing everything that you have to do. Keep searching. Don`t let this die, because she is out there somewhere. And someone knows something about what happened to her.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes. And we`re going to stay on top of this. I hope that surveillance video of the nearest stores, even if they`re a walk, a long walk, check to see if anybody got gas in the neighborhood, any kind of vehicle going through. We have to find this young woman.
This is wrong, that in America, we women have to fear going for a hike or a jog, that we`re putting our lives in our hands. It`s wrong. It`s got to stop.
